


Break thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me?

by isabellahazard (cafemusain)



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6887107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafemusain/pseuds/isabellahazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A certain Colonel ill-advisedly tears off to Cornwall to visit one Miss Rosdew. Featuring a proposal gone awry, nosy Cornish family members, a crying Admiral, and more Shakespeare references than strictly advisable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me?

“Bee, there’s a _man_ to see you.”

Isabella Hazard Rosdew (regrettably, she indulged herself, still Rosdew) had been deep in thought on a very dramatic cliffside until her sister interrupted. “If it’s Jos Williams again, tell him he can put his foot so far up his own arse that--”

“‘Fraid not,” a male voice interrupted, and she turned with a very embarrassingly astonished gasp, to see Jules giggling and--

“Robbie?” Sometime after Bee realized she ought to have called him Colonel Fitzgerald, Julia let out a triumphant _'hmph'_ and strode off towards the house, leaving Bee staring as he approached, looking quite disheveled indeed--more so than could be explained by even the most incommodious of carriage travel. “What are you doing in Cornwall? Did you _ride_ here from Rotherham?”

“What? No--well, from Plymouth. But that wasn’t what I--”

“From _Plymouth_? Can that be wise?” He had reached her and was taking her hands, and she firmly believed that she was only blushing from the heavy November wind.

She had promised herself she would never be the sort of girl who built a relationship in her head out of caught glances and whispered encouragements from friends. So when she received no direct indication of special interest from Robbie Fitzgerald, despite increasing friendship and attachment, she had surprised even herself by kissing him in the makeshift backstage on the last night of the house party at Rotherham Park. He had not sought her out, had not kissed her again, and she had left the next morning with her disappointment quite fiercely hidden away in a back-corner of her heart, to further explore (or steadfastly ignore) when she was home.

Home in Cornwall, for the first time since going to London all those months ago, but something was missing, now. Her father was building a fine new house on the south rise of their ancestral land, leaving pokey old Roscarrock in a state of half-habitation as furniture was moved, and the old life that she had hoped would comfort her seemed empty in a sense beyond the physical.

So that he was here, two weeks later, taking her hands in his own--she scarcely dared hope.

“Really, Robbie, your leg--”

“Enough of the leg! I didn’t come all this way to talk about my leg.” Which left the unspoken question roaring in her ears: why had he come? To end their association entirely? To deliver some other horrible news? Rather than reassuring her, as he might have intended, his breathless smile only made her nervous: an unfamiliar sensation that she was coming to resent. The pause was natural as he caught his breath, but some horrible new self-awareness bade her speak to fill it.

“I never meant-- that is, I hope I did not ruin the play for you; I was impulsive and… ” She only barely managed to contain whatever disastrous ending she’d half-intended for the sentence. The words had already come flying out of her mouth before she realized it might have been better, more genteel, not to refer to her imprudent actions at all.

“Ruin? No--” He was still smiling, shaking his head in what appeared to be astonishment. “No, I was only surprised. I hardly expected--this isn’t going as planned.”

It was Julia’s reaction, in fact, that really alerted her to the gravity of his next action. Though she was half-hidden by a roll in the landscape and a stand of stout windblown trees, Bee knew that her sister was in view and, perhaps more importantly, shouting distance of the house. Despite the wind she could be heard to shriek, “ _He’s kneeling!_ ”

He was, in fact, kneeling. “Judas God!”

“Hardly the reaction one looks for,” he said with infallible good humor, and composed himself, very seriously pressing her hand in both of his. She thought she might faint, or possibly be sick, or even float away on the next gust of wind, over the cliffside and into the water. “If there had been more time… but then, one cannot find any privacy at a house party. We are neither of us the sort for glances and signals, and I did not know if you--if you would be amenable to such an advance. I had meant to speak with you after the theatrical, and once you had gone there were arrangements to be made, conversations to be had…” Thoughts clearly scattered, he seemed to balloon into chattering before settling back to his task again.

“I cannot offer you a certain future. My profession, my prospects--I hadn’t even thought to marry yet! But you are… the one thing I can say with certainty--I am certain that I love you. And I wanted to be certain that you knew, before I asked.”

“Asked?”

“ _He’s asking!_ ”

“Isabella Hazard Rosdew, will you--Damn!” He abandoned her hand to grab at his leg and, reeling from what she assumed he had been about to say and from worry, she cried out quite uselessly, hardly hearing Julia grumble in confusion that he had stopped.

“Judas, Robbie, are you--” With every intention of helping, she hauled him to his feet. Surely straight was better than bent? Perhaps it had cramped--oh, and he was leaning on her to steady himself. His face was quite close, and he was, to her great distress, staring quite intently into her eyes. It turned the end of her sentence entirely. “Are you--are you asking me to marry you?”

“That was the intent, yes.”

With a suddenness that was truly ridiculous, it all came crashing together into some semblance of sense: the fool impulse to kiss him, the strangely dull, brooding sensation that her heart was being dragged over hot coals over these past several weeks. Entirely without putting together the clues, indeed without taking proper notice at all, Bee had managed to fall headlong in love. Desperate, disbelieving laughter bubbled its way out of her chest, evidently to his great distress; he stepped back with a frown and she moved forward to compensate.

“I’m saying yes, you great ninny!” The shocked pause was only momentary, and he was back swinging in an instant, an enormous smile plastered on his face.

“In future, I would avoid _laughing_ when a man proposes marriage.” He had stepped back in to put his arms around her.

“You’ll be pleased to know I don’t intend on--”

But then he was kissing her, preventing any further nonsense from clawing its way out of her mouth, which was much more pleasantly occupied. Kissing was, she decided, much better with both partners fully engaged, particularly when he brought his hands up to cradle her face, prompting her heart to flutter around her abdomen like a drunk seagull.

At Julia’s announcement that they were kissing, Bee drew back, intending to say something impertinent about privacy but entirely distracted. “I think now you’re meant to tell me I have witchcraft in my lips,” she said triumphantly, delighted she had remembered. He brushed her nose with his and let out a breathless laugh.

“I don’t think you could by any stretch of the imagination be described as ' _patiently and yielding'_.”

“Never mind that part. I liked the kissing better.”

“I find having an audience is less desirable when they are observing one’s personal conduct,” he commented, drawing back to look where Julia had been. Following his gaze, Bee saw that her mother had come outside and was gesturing to them, and could hear her father bellowing delightedly close behind.

“You won’t have a hard run of it; Papa is hardly the King of France. Don’t be perturbed if he starts weeping.” Robbie frowned and Bee laughed, taking his hand to lead him back to the house. “Oh yes, Admiral Sir Edmund Rosdew is quite tender when it comes to these things. It took him three hours to stop leaking when Pendry told him he wanted to go sea, even though it had been settled since nearly the day Pen was born.”

As predicted, when they met halfway back to the house, the Admiral’s eyes were sparkling threateningly despite his enormous grin, and Bee stifled a laugh when he had no more response than to immediately bring Robbie into a crushing parental embrace. “I’m that glad, m’boy, that glad,” he boomed, drawing back to regard his future son-in-law. “If 'alf of what Bee’s told us of you be true, you’re more welcome in the family than any of the London bucks she might 'ave 'ad,” he concluded, thumping a very startled Robbie thoroughly on the back, much to the comparatively-diminutive Susanna’s distress.

“Ned, for God’s sake, don’t frighten the boy off,” she said, fluttering over and putting fine-boned hands on either side of Robbie’s face. “And aren’t you just. Come, we’ll have a toast to celebrate.” Hardly even looking, she handed her husband her handkerchief before he could attempt to shake Robbie’s hand. 

Even Pendry noted the flurry of activity as the four of them tumbled in the door, clambering down the stairs to peek into the room in the leggy way only 18-year-olds could manage. “Who’s this? The one Bee’s been moping over? The soldier?”

“I have not been _moping_!”

Pendry only grinned, flinging himself into a chair. “Has she got herself engaged, then? Much obliged to you--couldn’t find a good Navy man to take her off our hands, could we--”

“Hush!” Said Julia with surprising authority, apparently having taken a shine to Robbie since escorting him to her sister, and was currently escorting him to the best chair still present. “Don’t mind Pen, he’s horrid.”

“I was only--ow!” Bee had flicked her brother’s head as she went to the sideboard for glasses, and stuck out her tongue triumphantly.

“Anyway he’s a Colonel and an _Earl’s_ son, and you’re barely even a Lieutenant. Papa told me you had to sit the exam twice.”

“I never did, Jules, you little harpy--”

The bickering continued as Bee poured the wine and Susanna did her best to comfort her husband, who was watery at best, but bearing up well now the shock had passed, only occasionally dabbing at his eyes with an incongruously delicate scrap of muslin. Wine distributed, Ned’s noticeably emptier than the rest, as wine made him weepier, he addressed Robbie directly as Bee settled herself on a chaise. “Bee tells us you are a reading man--come, let’s have a toast.”

Robbie, who had been expected to say very little since actually proposing, searched for a moment. Looking to the Admiral, he spoke with initial hesitation but, being borne on the wave of Cornish enthusiasm and affection, quoted with admirable grace for someone under the circumstances. “' _I pray you then, in love and dear alliance, let that one article rank with the rest; and thereupon give me your daughter'._ ” That it was Shakespeare was likely lost upon Sir Edmund, but he welled up in delight anyhow, and as it was not at all lost on Bee, she looked at Robbie shiningly, a tender smile blooming quite dramatically across her face. Julia, looking between them, sighed happily.  

“To Colonel and Mrs Fitzgerald, God willing,” Susanna finished, sensing the moment between the young couple would prevent either from speaking. The company echoed their sentiments.

To Colonel and Mrs Fitzgerald, indeed.


End file.
